Lol sorry, this comment ended up being a little longer than I planned on :P
It's an awesome post! I kind of feel bad that I don't have more to add, lol, because I agree with pretty much everything you said...the thing is, I think one of the big problems with how the show treated Cordelia was that it conflated two different things that shouldn't be conflated: Cordelia is mean to people and insults them (which she does, in some cases I think you could even see it as bullying since at several points IIRC she deliberately seeks Willow out to say hurtful things to her), therefore it is OK for Xander to treat her the way he does, therefore we should feel sympathy for Jesse instead of noticing how his behavior endorses rape culture, etc. Because that's just wrong. Xander's behavior is wrong regardless of the kind of person Cordelia is, Jesse's behavior is creepy regardless of how other people in school might mistreat him, etc.
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rosecarmine
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Date: 2013-06-23 01:46 pm (UTC)It's an awesome post! I kind of feel bad that I don't have more to add, lol, because I agree with pretty much everything you said...the thing is, I think one of the big problems with how the show treated Cordelia was that it conflated two different things that shouldn't be conflated: Cordelia is mean to people and insults them (which she does, in some cases I think you could even see it as bullying since at several points IIRC she deliberately seeks Willow out to say hurtful things to her), therefore it is OK for Xander to treat her the way he does, therefore we should feel sympathy for Jesse instead of noticing how his behavior endorses rape culture, etc. Because that's just wrong. Xander's behavior is wrong regardless of the kind of person Cordelia is, Jesse's behavior is creepy regardless of how other people in school might mistreat him, etc.